Out of Mind, Out of Sight

Extract

If you were told of a large parish where Catholics never heard Mass, never assisted at Benediction, never knelt before the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, never held a rosary in their hands, never saw a crucifix on their walls, never crossed themselves with holy water—and this through no fault of their own but only because they had been overlooked and forgotten—you would not believe it. And yet such a parish exists: scattered among all the mental hospitals in England whose tragic sufferers—the most tragic sufferers of all—have forfeited with health, sanity and freedom almost the whole practice of their religion.

In the nature of things—if nature were to be allowed the last word—no one thinks more than can be helped about insanity. Your daughter at Cambridge has a breakdown from overwork: you minimize the episode to her, to yourself, to your acquaintances. Everyone is encouraged to forget all about it as soon as possible. Your old father becomes senile: you make him as comfortable as you can in appropriate surroundings, but you do not broadcast the calamity. Someone goes under altogether: husband, wife, parent or child becomes incurably insane. It is not, for the most part, the lazy, the half-hearted, the unintelligent. It is often, in these intimidating days, the young, the ardent, the generous. It is they who, thanks to our crazy educational system over-tax their minds while they are still growing. They whose careers depend on the reiterated strain of examinations—those statutory mile-stones of imaginary progress which have so little bearing on present interests or future needs.